Using Virtual Reality to Talk to the Elephant

In order to speak to my subconscious, I looked to virtual reality. I thought that looking at the real world through a headset, while messing with the image in between, could provide an experience that began to separate the head from the body.

So Alden and I setup an IP camera and connected to it from touchdesigner. From there, the video feed can be layered on to a sphere, viewed from the inside using the headset. It’s a bizarre experience. You can be somewhere else, watching the world without the world watching you. Your physical location is dislocated from reality.

The camera has a motor that can also be scripted. Alden had a python server rotate it, making the camera consistently look around the room. Occasionally you would notice someone picking their nose.

We experimented with manipulating the video feed. By removing previous frames from the current frame, we could create a weird background extraction effect. It produced strangely stimulating world when blended with the unaltered feed.

My next experiment is to engage in VR Therapy, mixing a synthetic environment with the video feed. An operator performs on the viewer, changing text or the environment in order to talk to the elephant.